


Nodus Tollens

by ErinPenwrite



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:27:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22101040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPenwrite/pseuds/ErinPenwrite
Summary: If I was being entirely honest, I'd admit that I thought I shouldn't have made it, that my life should have been snuffed out there on the launchpad. A short story in lieu of a novel. But fate hadn't seen the Elric's coming, and I always did tell Edward that he should become a novelist.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Alfons Heiderich, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Alfons Heiderich, Edward Elric & Alfons Heiderich
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: FMA Gift Exchange 2019





	Nodus Tollens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cowania](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=cowania).



> First off: Cowania! I am so very sorry it took me so friggin long. Secondly.... It's not finished.
> 
> In my defense, I went through eleven different drafts, finally settling upon the twelfth. The delay was not from idleness but from my inner editor picking apart everything I wrote in the month of December and leaving me in a state of utter despair. But, then, January came through for me!
> 
> As I said, it's not completed, but I wanted you to have at least this much while I finish up the rest.

I smiled as I set the last process of the launch in motion. Edward swore over the roar of the engine starting up, but he would realise that this was for the best. He'd return to his world, his home, his Alphonse, and maybe, if I truly ever held a place in his heart, he would think of me from time to time.

Ignition lighted the fuel, and I felt a heat wash over me as the rocket crept those first few inches off the ground. The fumes were so strong, the heat sweltering, and yet I couldn't look away. It would be the last time I'd ever see him, after all, and in my first manned launch, no less.

A shot rang, and there was an immediate rush of cold. I kept watching as long as I could. My vision tunneled, and I couldn't help thinking that maybe I would be going to a better place as well.

* * *

A muffled ringing. Weakness coursing through my body. Lungs on fire. The world was shaking, and my sight was hazy at best.

"Alfons, please!"

I knew that voice. That accent. I knew that I shouldn't be hearing it, and that knowledge stirred me.

There above me stood my reflection.

That wasn't quite right. I blinked. The hair and the eyes weren't correct, the face bearing that of a man several years younger, but it was still me, somehow.

"Alfons!"

I turned my attention to that voice, and there was Edward. The notion that he was holding me in his arms came to me with a start, and I lurched. My shoulder screamed at me, and I gasped at the pain.

"Hold on, don't try to move," Edward held me close, his voice wet. "Don't you dare die on me, Alfons. Please don't die."

I laughed, strained and agonizing, but worth it. "Only you would demand for something and then say 'please.'" I coughed, and, even through the overwhelming jolt in my shoulder, I felt Ed clutch me tighter.

* * *

"Rocket fuel?" I asked in disbelief. Not that I should want to disbelieve it, but it just seemed ridiculous.

"Yes," Edward sat on the edge of my hospital bed. "It wasn't consumption like you thought. You were breathing in too many fumes from the fuel."

"But I was always so careful not to -"

"You would get as close to the launches as you could stand," Edward snapped, "because, as you told me, you wanted to feel the changes in the air pressure. And, well," he looked at me with open annoyance, "you felt the changes in the air alright. To the point that you inhaled them and stopped noticing how bad it was getting until you could only assume the worst!"

I blushed.

"Alfons," he murmured, looking down at the sheets, "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

"You'd keep moving forward," I said. "As you've always done."

"Not this time." 

I reached out for his hand, landing my fingertips on his steel prosthetic. It was a marvel of technology, and already I saw how much more fluid it moved compared to the other version. I knew he couldn't feel my hand over his, but he could see it. He knew it was there.

"Edward, I..." I wasn't sure what to say. I knew just how strong of a person he was. Now, especially. Now that I knew that all the stories he'd ever told me - stories that I had denied as whimsical manifestations of his creativity - were completely true. His home, his life, everything he knew and adored was on the other side of an existential gateway that I could not begin to comprehend. His whole world, and now it was truly beyond his reach.

A sudden sickness wormed through my heart. Why would he have ever decided to come back here?

Something must have showed on my face. His left hand clasped over mine. "I had hoped," he sighed, "for so long that this world was just a dream. That when I woke up, I would have the perfect excuse to abandon it. That it was all just a fantasy. Because then, I wouldn't feel the any guilt.

"I stopped honestly wanting to go back the very moment I knew that Al was alive." He looked up at me with a sad smile, "But, I'm weak. I'm only human, and I wanted to see him with my own eyes. I wanted to be with him, but I knew for a fact that I couldn't go back and leave you here alone.

"Al had everyone we had met in our travels. Our friends and allies. You and I, though, we only had each other, and as soon as I realized that, I knew I couldn't leave you."

He locked his gaze to mine, and I found myself unable to break away.

His lips parted, forming the beginnings of words before shutting and starting again. His brow furled, eyes damp, and I knew he was searching for what to say when it occurred to me.

I wasn't sick. I couldn't get him sick.

A weight lifted from my chest as all the restrictions I'd placed upon myself sloughed away, and, damn the protesting of the bullet wound in my shoulder, I leaned over and sealed his lips with mine. 

* * *

"I'm Alphonse Elric," Al extended a hand. "Nice to finally meet you."

I shook his hand. "The pleasure is mine. I'm Alfons Heiderich."

Edward cleared his throat, "Which brings me to an awkward subject."

I glanced at him and back to his brother.

"To avoid confusion, can we all agree on what to call you both?"

Al gave him a pained expression.

"What?" Ed prickled.

"You're so rude!" Al rolled his eyes.

"But it's going to get confusing if I call out 'Al' and both of you answer."

I could see his reasoning, but I could also see he was a nervous wreck. "Are you worried that we will be annoyed by each other?" I offered.

The affronted squawk I received was confirmation enough.

"Don't concern yourself with that," I shrugged. "Besides, I believe there is an easy enough solution."

Both Elrics blinked at me, and I was struck with the idea that there were far more similarities between the two of them than between Alphonse and myself.

"You have no objections to being called 'Al,' and I have noticed Edward calling me 'Alfons' more as of late," I looked to Al to guage his reaction.

He shrugged, "Sure."

Edward visibly relaxed, as though some great battle had been avoided.

I smiled at Al, "Now I do have a question that maybe you can answer for me."

"Oh?" He perked up, and I let my smile turn ever so slightly sly. There was one way I knew to knock Edward out of a potential funk.

"Was he always this rude, or was that just a result of negligence on my part?"

"Hey!" Ed barked.

Al grinned. "No, no, it's chronic."

"Wh-What?!" Ed sputtered, "Listen here -"

"That explains some things," I rubbed my chin in mock pondering.

"Wait a sec!" Edward was red in the face.

"Hmm? What is it, Brother?" Al still wore his grin, but it looked conspicuously similar to Ed's when he was up to no good.

Edward set us with a glare, "Remind me to never leave you two alone together."

* * *

"But, to the countryside? I can't do that!"

Edward set me in place with a flat glare. "You can, and you will. Winter is in a couple months, which gives us just enough time to save up and move before people start pumping the air full of soot from their chimneys."

"But we will have to use a fire to heat our home as well," I protested.

"The air is still cleaner outside the city!"

"But how are we going to be able to do our research?"

"It only going to be for a little while, and then you can get right back to it. And being away from the city isn't going to stop you from researching anyway and you know it!"

"What about work?" I was grasping at straws, "There are hardly enough jobs throughout Munich. There are less out there."

Edward grinned. "You forget, Alfons, I was born in the country. There's plenty of work if you know where to ask."

"Cleaning out stables," I grumbled. "And that's not exactly 'clean air' either."

He pulled a face. "Listen, it's only going to be until your lungs have a chance to heal. Then we can come back. Or, for that matter, we can go anywhere else. There are other places that are conducting heavy research on rocketry." He folded his arms and glanced at the window. "Besides, I get the feeling that the sooner we get out of Munich, the better. It's not been going well out there since that protest went sour the night of the launch."

I frowned. He couldn't expect me to leave behind my city -

Oh. Right. Of course he could.

My shoulders slumped, and the sting of my still healing wound lessened as I relaxed. "Alright. You are thinking more rationally than I am right now," I conceded, "but where do you suggest we go?"

"Honestly?" Ed raised a brow, "Europe itself doesn't sit right with me. It reminds me far too much of Amestris. War is going to break out again; I can feel it. What I want is to get us as far away from it as possible."

I could hear a caveat brewing. "But...?"

He leaned on the wall next to the window and chewed his bottom lip. 

"Surely it can't be as bad as what we just experienced?"

He sighed, "It might just be delaying the inevitable."

I waited for him to continue.

"There was a chemist from my world. I told you about him before. The day I wrecked the car on the way to the fair."

"I remember."

"You didn't believe me," his eyes shown with an old hurt.

I stood from the bed and crossed over to him, resting a hand over his folded arms. "I was wrong, but I remember your stories. Every one of them, and I do believe them now."

He searched my face, and I hid nothing. Once he was satisfied, he nodded. "This chemist was working on a weapon, a bomb, and it had massive amounts of power. I think, when he tried human transmutation there at the end, he crossed over to this world."

"What makes you suspect that? You and Al did not initially come here. Your teacher did not, either."

"But he disappeared when he did the transmutation. There was no body, and the bodies of those he tried to raise were gone as well." 

I let out a shakey breath and joined him to lean on the wall. I shouldn't have stood so fast, or maybe it was simply the gravity of what he was suggesting. He watched me with concern. I waved my hand, getting back to the conversation once I caught my breath. "I know nothing of alchemy, so I have to defer to you on this, but, I have to ask, does Al think this way too?"

"He's the one who brought it to my attention."

I forced myself to stay standing despite how weak my limbs felt from weeks of strict bedrest. "What did you mean, 'delay the inevitable?'"

He considered me a moment. "You can put your arm over me for support if you need."

I shook my head, "I need to build up my strength."

"Exhausting yourself won't do that."

"Edward," I said, "you are stalling and using me as convenient excuse."

He huffed and looked away, taking his time before finally answering. "Like I said, the man was a chemist. Chemistry here, as bizarre as it is considering our alchemy, is far more advanced than it was back home. He was working in isolation, but there is nothing stopping the scientists of this world from doing similar research in droves and developing their own version of the same technology."

"We don't have automail," I objected. Our technologies didn't exactly parallel.

"And we don't have aircraft."

I felt my legs wobble and stretched an arm behind Ed's shoulders.

"D'you want me to help you back to bed?"

"No," I said. "Exhaustion isn't good, but neither is remaining sedentary."

"Then would you like to walk some?"

I nodded, saving my breath.

We paced the room until Edward led me to a chair and knelt on the floor in front of my knees. "I'm afraid I'm being selfish again," he muttered.

"For what?"

"I just want to get us all as far from here as we can possibly get. I want you and Al to be whole and healthy and safe, and I don't want to have to worry anymore about some greater evil plotting war and suffering."

"You want the best for those you care about, and you call yourself selfish?" I scoffed. Here I was complaining about being moved into the country for my own well being while Edward was contemplating a way to save the world, and not even the one he was born in, from a terrible fate I didn't fully grasp.

I tilted forward, pressing my forehead to his, "Your curse is that you care too much." I kissed his hair and smiled at his wide eyes trying valiantly to deny what I was saying. 

I sat back in the chair, "You've convinced me, Edward."

Confusion marred his brow, "Of what?"

"To leave Munich. It's time."


End file.
